“I have found that the Aspen meeting stands high for its uniqueness in promoting mental interactions among participants. Usual workshops and conferences give people opportunities to give and listen to talks. But they are one-way flows.... The Aspen Center is successfully maintaining a distinction from these kinds of conventional meetings.”

2014 Publications Acknowledging the Aspen Center for Physics

Much of my work was focused on completing a paper with Elena D'Onghia on a different merger -- NGC 5387 -- which has a massive star formation region at the intersection of the stream. Our first paper is currently in press and describes the observational data, as well as speculating as to a physical interpretation of the observations (Beaton et al, in press (http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2013arXiv1312. 0585B)). Elena modeled this event and I qualitatively evaluated the conclusions of her models using numerous literature datasets. I completed the first full draft of this work while at Aspen and discussed it at length with Elena -- in particular how to refine the text and models to make the results stronger. We developed a plan moving forward and completing this work. We also discussed another pending publication -- a very, very complicated merger in NGC 4631. New optical observations revealed a new stellar stream in this system -- which contains two massive galaxies and nearly a dozen of associated dwarfs. Previously, I had obtained literature data tracing the neutral gas. Elena and I discussed how to reconcile the gas and stellar data -- and in the context of her model. We revised our interpretation of the system and set goals for the pending publication and (potentially) a more detailed study in the future.